Before Little Women made her a household name, a young Louisa May Alcott published Moods, her first full-length novel—a passionate, searching story of temperament, friendship, and the consequences of a marriage entered in haste. First issued in 1864 under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard, the book follows Sylvia Yule, a spirited young woman whose impulsive choice binds her to one man while her heart turns toward another, and whose struggle to live honestly within an unhappy union anticipates the moral independence Alcott would give her heroines in the years to come. This edition presents the complete, unabridged original text exactly as it first appeared, accompanied by a new introduction that situates the novel in Alcott's early career and in the literary culture of its time, along with reader's notes illuminating its themes, historical context, and the author's own later revisions. Warm, candid, and quietly daring, Moods rewards every reader curious about the making of a great American writer. Part of The Founding Texts Library.